


C'est la Mort (Don't Go Without Me)

by CavalryofWoah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But Lily is not having this bullshit, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Look everyone is still dead and everything is sad, Marauders' Era, Oneshot, Only characters who physically appear are tagged, Open Ending, The Battle of Godric's Hollow, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, fix-it (sort of), ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 00:37:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6682405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalryofWoah/pseuds/CavalryofWoah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James, he thought Lily had a chance. He died thinking he gave them time to get out, and she hopes that wherever he went it was good. But Lily is the last one standing, and her son is still here, and she is not leaving him. She is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	C'est la Mort (Don't Go Without Me)

**Author's Note:**

> A mother who loves her son enough to die for him probably loves him enough to come back as a ghost for him. 
> 
> Title is from C'est la Mort by The Civil Wars.
> 
> I definitely did not cry while writing this at three am. I did not.

It’s not that Lily is afraid of dying. It’s more that she’s afraid of dying and leaving her son alone.

James, he thought Lily had a chance. He died thinking he gave them time to get out, and she hopes that wherever he went it was good. But Lily is the last one standing, and her son is still here, and she is not leaving him. She is _not._

That madman, he stands in front of her, the sounds of her husband’s death echoing in her ears, and he tells her to move aside. He gives her the choice he has given no one, gives it to a _Mudblood_ even, but Lily is a mother. There was never any choice at all. She dies the way James did, for her family, for her son, and her only regret is that it wasn’t enough.

And later, when she thinks back to that split second where she could have moved on and didn’t--when she remembers that James is gone and she tethered herself to this world for a son that will leave it to join him, leave her alone--she wonders if it was worth it. If choosing to stay did any good at all.

But Lily is a mother. And James would understand as well as she does that _there was never any choice at all_.

By the time her ghost is standing back in Harry’s nursery, a lot has changed. Voldemort is gone, and the house is in ruins, half-collapsed and on fire, and Harry. Harry is _screaming_ . Harry is screaming, and Harry is crying, and _Harry is still alive._

Lily stumbles through the destroyed room, accidentally drifting through a few pieces of the shattered furniture that now litters the floor, and when she reaches out to sooth her child her hand goes right through him and he shivers. Her breath would hitch in her chest, but she no longer has any air in her lungs. Or lungs, apparently.

So she pulls back her hand, and she hums, instead. Lily tries for something happy, and she feels like she fails, but Harry hears her voice, and he settles. The crying turns into soft snuffles, and he turns his head enough that she can see the blood running down his forehead. Lily itches to clean it away, to pick up her wand and fix this one thing for him, but she can’t. She can’t do anything at all.

They sit there in the dark, empty house, and Lily moves on to singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow--mumbling the words she doesn’t remember, wishing she wasn’t tone deaf, wishing James was here to tease her and take over--until she hears the sound of someone approaching the house.

“Sirius,” she whispers, and hope rises in her unbeating heart. Sirius can pick up Harry, Sirius can fix his forehead, Sirius can-

Sirius can pull James’ body from the wreckage. Lily’s eyes burn with phantom tears, and she swallows harshly, but she wipes her face and sets her chin. Harry still needs her to be brave. She can’t miss James yet, can’t look at the redheaded body under a chunk of ceiling in the corner. Until Sirius is here and Harry is safe and someone with a heartbeat can handle things, Lily needs to be brave.

But it was not Sirius who howled out for James and Lily, but Hagrid.

“Hagrid!” Lily screeches. “Hagrid, up here, Harry’s up here!”

“Lily?!” Hagrid shouts, and she hears his heavy footsteps pounding up the doubtless unstable staircase. The large wizard shoves the door open urgently, and when he sees Lily his face goes white.

“Oh, Lily,” he mutters gruffly, his voice thick. His beard shakes as his chin trembles, and his large hands dwarf Lily’s as he reaches toward her, as if he can pull her back to his plane of existence just by wishing. As if anyone can fix the damage Voldemort has done in this house. “Why’d ye stay? James’ll be waitin’ for ye.”

“Harry needed me,” Lily whispers. She swallows, and says far more briskly, “Hagrid, you need to get Sirius, and you need to get Dumbledore. We have to find out what happened to Peter, we’ll have to tell his mum how he… how he died.”

“What’d ye mean, how Peter died? He’s alive and kicking, last I heard. And the next time I see Sirius Black he’s goin’ ter be on the wrong end o’ me umbrella for this, I can tell ye that.”

“Peter was our Secret Keeper,” Lily insists, “so if Voldemort could enter this house then the Fidelius charm must be broken, which means Peter has to be dead.”

“No,” Sirius mumbles harshly from the open doorway, his wand gripped in a white-knuckled hand. “It means Peter sold you out, Lily. Even if he died in the line of duty for the Order, Voldemort wouldn’t automatically know where you lived. Someone had to tell him. And think. You never felt the wards drop, did you? You had no warning at all that he was here until he walked into the house.”

Hagrid had spun on him the second he spoke, umbrella pointed at his heart, but Sirius couldn’t seem to care less. He looks at Lily like he’s lost, lost and resigned. He looks like a man awaiting a punishment he entirely deserves, and Lily wants to cry because she remembers, too. They had asked Sirius to be their Secret Keeper, Sirius who they trusted above all others. And he had told them no.

He had said that he was too obvious, and besides, he took too many risks in the line of duty. As both an Auror and a member of the Order, he couldn’t guarantee his safety, and as such couldn’t guarantee theirs. Use Peter, Sirius had said. No one would ever suspect that _Peter_ was the Potters’ Secret Keeper. And James and Lily had agreed, and so they had switched, just a week ago today, and now James is dead. And, Lily remembers with a jolt, so is she.

“Oh. _Oh._ Sirius. None of us could have known.”

When he shakes his head, she clenches her jaw and repeats herself.

“None of us could have known. We all made a mistake, trusting Peter, but he was your friend, he was _our_ friend. He was a Gryffindor, he was a Marauder. And he was… he was _Peter_. We agreed, you hardly had to talk us around to it. It was my mistake as much as it was yours.”

“But,” Sirius says brokenly, “you’re the one who died because of it.”

Lily squeezes her eyes shut, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to say next, but Harry whimpers and she forgets everything else. She moves again to pick him up on autopilot, but she freezes no more than an inch away, staring at her see-through fingers.

“Sirius? I’m going to need you to pick Harry up for me.”

“Now see here,” Hagrid blurts out at last, his umbrella-encased wand drooping to point toward the floor in his confusion, “d’ye mean ter tell me that little _Peter Pettigrew_ betrayed ye both to You-Know-Who? I can’ believe that!”

“Believe it or not, Hagrid, that’s the only option. Now we have to get Harry to Hogwarts, or to Sirius’ house, or, or… or somewhere safe. Sirius. _Pick Harry up._ ”

Hagrid’s eyes follow Sirius as he moves blindly to obey Lily, but his wand doesn’t, and that’s good enough for now. Sirius hesitates as he gets closer, and Lily realizes he doesn’t want to get too close to her ghostly form and risk the gut-wrenching cold that comes from walking through a spirit. She’s slow to move away, though. Every inch of distance between her and her son feels like a million miles, and a fierce ache gnaws at her stomach. A stomach that will never, Lily thinks, feel hunger again.

But Lily moves away, and Hagrid makes no aggressive movements, and Sirius picks up the once-more crying baby.

He’s done it before, plenty of times.

But there is a care in his grip, and an awkwardness, that she thought he had lost with time. He holds Harry like he did when the baby was a newborn; as he has never held glass or fine china, because Sirius cares for material things, even valuable heirlooms, only in terms of how angry his family will be if he breaks them. Their anger is not a deterrent, but rather a bonus, and Sirius is very, very good at breaking fragile things. And he is, Lily knows, very aware of it.

But no matter how awkward Sirius feels, holding the last Potter in his hands, Lily has no fear. She trusts him with Harry, more than she trusts anyone in the world with him. That was why she wanted him to be their Secret Keeper. Because right now, he looks at Harry like his only thought is to keep him safe. Even, if necessary, safe from himself. And she thinks, _yes. Yes, this will do._

Sirius is Harry’s godfather, and Lily had sat down with James after he was born and changed their will. Life in these times was dangerous, even without being a dark wizard hunter or a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and the Potters had been as careful as possible. Sirius will take care of Harry now, she knows, now that James can’t, now that she can’t. And Remus, Remus will help.

“Oh, Merlin,” Lily realizes. “Someone has to tell Remus.”

Sirius looks up from Harry with dread in his eyes.

“Someone has to tell Remus that James and I are d-dead.”

Hagrid steps forward, sympathy in his dark eyes. “I’ll take Harry ter Dumbledore, he said he’s ter live with those Muggles now, and ye can go ter Remus.”

“ _What_?” Lily snaps, shocked. “What Muggles?”

“Yer sister, Lily, and that husband o’ hers,” Hagrid explains, his bushy eyebrows furrowing.

“He most certainly is _not_. I have a will, James has a will, and not even Dumbledore is getting in the way of our wishes. Sirius is Harry’s godfather, and we put it in specially. Sirius is Harry’s guardian now,” Lily says, crossing her arms and scowling.

“But Dumbledore said-”

“I don’t give a flying”--a glance at Harry--”fudge what Dumbledore said. Harry is my son, and it is my word that matters. Even if I wasn’t here to interfere, Dumbledore couldn’t just _give_ Harry to my horrid sister. I only bothered to write a damn will to make sure that _wouldn’t happen!”_ Lily insists, resisting the urge to stomp her foot like a child. She doesn’t think that would help her argument, something she had learned the hard way with J-

No. She has to deal with Hagrid, she can’t deal with this now.

Sirius had stayed out of it, though he stood up straighter when Lily fought for his right to keep Harry.

“Hagrid, she’s right,” he says gently. “I’ve never met Lily’s sister, but I listened to her cry about her for seven years of school. There’s no way we can give her Harry.”

“Alrigh’,” Hagrid sighs, “but then where are we goin’ ter take ‘im?”

“Well, you can go tell Dumbledore that it’s not his place to decide where Harry lives, and Sirius and I will take him to see Remus, and then. Well, then I suppose we’ll figure it out. But he can’t stay here, it’s far too exposed,” Lily said, trying to tone down her irritation at the idea of her son ending up with Petunia. It isn’t Hagrid’s fault that he has no idea how awful her sister would be to Harry.

If Sirius is uncomfortable with the idea of a ghost hitching a ride on his motorbike, he doesn’t show it. His only discomfort comes when they pass the living room, pass James’ crumpled body, his blank eyes staring from behind his broken glasses. His hand is stretched out, still reaching for the table that held his wand, and hers.

Lily resists the urge to look away, forces herself to stare at her husband’s remains until the image is seared into her brain. And then she very calmly asks Sirius to grab their wands, and walks out of her ruined home before she does something stupid, like cry. Like lay down next to him and never move again. Lily had had her chance to stay with James forever. But she is a mother. And Harry needs her more.

More than she needs the love of her life, the one person she could always depend on to love her, and care for her, and put her first. More than she needs to give in to the tears burning in her throat, more than she needs to collapse and try to throw things she will never again touch. Harry needs her more than she needs peace.

Sirius is silent as he walks out behind her into the cold Halloween night, Harry in one arm and the wands in the other. The wands he tucks into the inner pocket of his open jacket, and he settles Harry into a sling he conjures with his own wand, then zips the jacket high around him, so only the baby’s small, disheveled head pokes out.

Lily isn’t quite sure how traveling as a ghost will work, but when Sirius mounts his large Motorcycle, she swings a leg over and sits on it behind him, as she has a hundred times before. This time, though, she stays well back, afraid her ghostly chill will distract him from driving the flying contraption, and looks down to see herself hovering a few centimeters above the seat. Still, when they take off, she moves with the bike.

At first the rumble of the engine is loud and distracting as they rise above Godric’s Hollow, high above the lights and towards the clouds, but after a moment Sirius taps the bike with his wand and mutters first a silencing spell, and then a warming charm. The rest of the ride to Remus’ cottage is silent. Neither friend knows what to say, and so they say nothing. What words could possibly comfort them now?


End file.
